Former Crystal Palace owner and talkSPORT pundit Simon Jordan has taken aim at the Premier League and Richard Masters in relation to Newcastle United's 'laughable' takeover. The former Eagles owner says he's unaware of any regulation that states why a state cannot own a Premier League club - something that Gary Neville also believes needs clarifying with the introduction of an ownership license.
Jordan was speaking after the Toon takeover was thrust back under the spotlight, after Yasir Al-Rumayyan, governor of the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia and chairman of Newcastle United, was handed a summons from the lawyers representing the PGA Tour or the San Francisco federal court will issue a judgment by default against him, likely incurring a financial penalty.
A judge approved the PGA Tour’s request to include Al-Rumayyan and the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund as defendants in its lawsuit against LIV golf - a rival competition set up last year - a suit filed in response to LIV’s ongoing lawsuit against the tour for allegedly breaking federal antitrust laws in its attempt to quash LIV in its inaugural 2022 season.
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PIF are challenging that order, arguing both the wealth fund and its governor Al-Rumayyan "are not ordinary third parties subject to basic discovery relevance standards".
Jordan, who has been vocal about the takeover in the past, claims Richard Masters and the Premier League will never give complete transparency on the legally binding assurance given to the organisation, that show a separation from PIF and the Saudi Arabian regime. The former Palace owner claims piracy was the main issue stopping the Toon takeover in its tracks, with Saudi Arabia agreeing to end its dispute with Qatar.
Full talkSPORT transcript of Simon Jordan and Jim White's debate on Newcastle's ownership
Jim White: "Has he [Richard Masters] now got to navigate his way out of the legally binding assurances in regard to the Newcastle takeover? He's going to be pursued here as a result of this isn't he?"
Simon Jordan: "It depends who's going to pursue him and on what basis."
JW: "The rest of the Premier League?"
SJ: "Well, you mean the other 19 Premier League clubs and their appetites to do it."
JW: "Right. They were hellbent that it wasn't going to happen."
SJ: "Well I don't know if they were or they weren't. What I do know, is that it's relatively ridiculous to suggest that the PIF Fund, which by its very existence is a sovereign wealth fund, and by definition a sovereign wealth fund's sole focus in life is to accrue profit for the benefit of the nation's economy that it represents. To suggest anything different - the ownership of Newcastle - is just absurd.
"What they've found themselves in is a slightly cleft position now, because you've got them arguing over a particular conundrum in America over the LIV tour and they've advanced a notion that's going to unpick an argument somewhere else. This is football in it's finest and most ridiculous. This is a sovereign wealth fund. The PIF fund is a sovereign wealth fund. Are you suggesting that you're going to carve out a particular part of that investment - specifically Newcastle - albeit it's owned by PIF, and make that have some sort of wall between the Saudi Arabia de facto leader and ruler Mohammed Bin Salman and his purpose in life which is to create wealth for his country and every other aspect of the investment, while using the exact same people, that sit on the governing board of the PIF fund to make investments in every other business around the world, through the auspice of a sovereign wealth fund?
"A sovereign wealth fund, just in case someone didn't hear me the first time round, its sole benefit in life is to accrue wealth from the foreign reserves it has in overseas investment. It's always been them. Going to Richard Masters, you're never going to see the transparency behind this because they're not going to allow you to see it. It has always been preposterous. It has always been laughable. It's always been contemptible.
"The problem for anybody else that doesn't like this, is I'm not aware and nobody has ever pointed me to a situation where a nation state cannot own a football club anyway."
JW: "And you point to Manchester City."
SJ: "And I point to PSG in a French league, being governed by UEFA rules, being owned undeniably, by Qatari Sports Investment, which is unashamedly, by its own admission, Nasser Al-Khelaifi, a nation state funded football club. I don't know why there is this subterfuge. I know why this subterfuge is because of the idea that the Premier League needs to have a reputation and profile that doesn't find it falling foul of human rights organisations and all the challenges that go around regimes that come in from the Middle East and buy football clubs.
"It was never, ever about this. It was about piracy. Somehow or another, it's got tied up in a knot and are you going to make fools of these people? You're going to make Richard Masters a useful idiot for PIF because he's put himself in a position - I don't really understand and maybe it's beyond my paygrade, maybe someone can come and explain it because no one has ever bothered or put on the spot to do so, what does a legally binding assurance look like?"
JW: "Yep, yeah."
SJ: "You've got to fund - are PIF the majority shareholder? Yes. What is PIF? It's a sovereign wealth fund. What does a sovereign wealth fund do? It raises money for the nation state they're represent. Okay, so we accept all those things. What's different about this then? What legally binding assurances - by the way the same people who run the PIF in every other investment and sit on governing boards that are being cited in legal papers and admitting that it's a sovereign wealth fund solely for the purpose of that nation state's benefit, what do you say now to all of that?"
JW: "If somebody, if they should so wish, somebody with a lot of money could come along and say, 'legally I challenge this, I challenge that there were legally binding assurances that the rulers of Saudi Arabia would not be in control of Newcastle - I think they are. I think PIF and the sovereign state of Saudi are one and the same and I'm going to legally challenge it.' But who is going to do that?
SJ: "Everybody knows that is the case, there cannot be a denial."
JW: "But there is now Simon. It's going to come out."
SJ: "But no one denies it, that the PIF is a sovereign wealth fund. Everyone accepts it. It's universally accepted it can't be anything else that's its soul purpose in life. Public investment fund solely for the benefit of that particular part of the world. We all know that. What they've said, is they have legal assurance, i.e a wall separating the PIF fund and they've got legally binding assurances that the nation state is not involved. But, the revenue that belongs to PIF, the implications of the money that was utilised, was nation state money.
"PIF fund is a nation state instrument. It's ridiculous, beyond ridiculous it's laughable. It's what makes people laugh at football from the commercial world going 'have you ever seen such preposterous nonsense?' Now with all that in mind, where is the appetite, who is going to bring the challenge to force Richard Masters and the Premier League board that he represents on behalf of the other 19 football clubs?"
JW: "Well I would suggest the same Premier League clubs that were pushing back at the time, there was resistance within the league and the clubs..."
SJ: "But they have no grounds for resistance. The only grounds they ever had - they don't!"
JW: "What do you mean they don't? They do now."
SJ: "Again I make the argument and I can't square the circle in my own mind, why bother with all this unnecessary subterfuge around it's not a nation state? There's not, as far as I'm concerned, a regulation prohibiting a nation state owning a football club. What there is, is anybody involved in piracy, i.e. taking a product that belongs to the 20 football clubs in the Premier League and allowing it to be pirated somewhere else to the detriment to the broadcaster that's bought those rights, is gonna say to somebody 'well we're not having that lot in here. Why would we have somebody that's condoning state funded, state legitimised piracy?' Which is what was happening in Saudi."
JW: "Do we now know for a fact, the rulers of Saudi Arabia are behind the control of Newcastle United?"
SJ: "Pretty much, yes. I don't think anybody in their right mind would suggest that they weren't. The people who got it right the first time round were the people going to games with cultural appropriation. I would love to look and understand what it is that was so legally binding and so absolutely enforceable that every single dollar, dime, Riyadh, real, dim or dirham or whatever the currency is that goes into this football club. Where has it been generated from? The PIF Fund. What is the PIF Fund? A sovereign wealth fund. Where does the money come from? The PIF Fund. What is the PIF fund?
"Around and around you go. It's almost contemptible. It's utterly laughable. That's why it was never about this. Why they had to go through this route was all about the look and feel, the PR issues, Amnesty International being all over them, everything else that goes with that. Why did it suddenly go through? It did not suddenly go through because of a fence being put up around the PIF's funding. It went through because BeIN got a settlement from the Saudis for a billion quid admitting piracy. That's why it went through. All the Newcastle fans that are away with themselves that think it's something different - fine that ship has sailed now. Are you going to unpick this? No. It's done."
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